Go ahead, take a seat. Relax. Before you rush into the new year, let's glance back at 2012's most notable home and garden stories -- at least how we see them ...

I know it's repetitive to say this, but edible gardening remains the reigning trend. Fueling interest this year was Michelle Obama's influential book, "American Grown," which continues her conversation with the country about the benefits of eating straight from the garden. In 2012, as people became comfortable with harvesting vegetables, their repertoire expanded into fruits, even unfamiliar ones like pawpaw and goji berries. Good for them.

Inside the house, changes came through updating spaces rather than pushing out walls. Kitchens and baths still come in No. 1 for new looks, but the frequently wasted space of basements got attention, too, often becoming game rooms where family and friends come together to play. And readers found their way to our popular weekly clutter tip for easier ways to organize their spaces.

So there you have it: Edibles and updates get our nod for the top trends of 2012. But we didn't stop there. Read on for our other picks.Note to readers: Because the headlines for the stories changed from print to online, we've used keywords and the date of print publication to identify the stories.

One friend called Ned Jaquith the Johnny Appleseed of bamboo. With humor and generosity, Jaquith, who died Sept. 26, inspired respect and enthusiasm for a plant that many people fear. His curiosity was endless, his brain a repository for all things bamboo. Bamboo Garden Nursery, the 24-year-old business he moved from Milwaukie to North Plains in 2004, was not just a place to buy bamboo. Small forests of timber bamboo, displays of stay-in-place clumping bamboo and precious cultivars, one named after Jaquith, grow famously across the 20 acres. The nursery -- and Jaquith -- became a beacon for bamboo education. "He was one of the most knowledgeable people on the science of bamboo," said friend Susanne Lucas, "but the most modest about it, too. He didn't realize what an audience he had. When he spoke about bamboo, everyone was listening."

Once -- not too many years ago -- edible gardening books arrived in our mailbox almost not at all. Now, they're about all we get; dozens every year. But in 2012, there might as well have been only one: Michelle Obama's "American Grown." Along with the White House kitchen garden, planted in 2009, the book continues to advocate improving childhood health with fresh food picked in the garden rather than the grocery store.

Gone are the days when resale value played a driving role in home remodeling decisions. Economic uncertainty -- along with deflated house values -- has homeowners looking at existing space and making their homes function better and feel more comfortable. Dark basements are getting new life as family rooms (and in one case, a wine room), and attics are becoming bedroom suites. Unattractive fireplaces are being refaced and modernized, and kitchens and bath continue to be the most popular rooms to update.

View full sizeJapanese-style soaking tubs catch on in U.S.Courtesy of Diamond Spas

TUB TRENDS

While standing under a stream of water remains the No. 1 way for Northwesterners to get clean, soaking tubs are coming along. With roots in Japanese cleanliness, the deep tubs, or ofuros, come in stone, metal, wood, stainless steel, composite and copper. On the other end of the spectrum, some homeowners are going for tubless bathrooms. And some, like Daniel Thomas, one of the founders of Portland's Hammer & Hand, have both a tubless bathroom and one dedicated to an ofuro. (One of our weekly polls asked readers if they needed a tub in their home; the majority say no.)

View full sizeSpring cleaning keeps garage safe as well as orderlyTHE OREGONIAN

DECLUTTER/DOWNSIZE

Downsizing naturally means decluttering. You can't do one without the other. But what if you're not moving? Those piles of papers, stacks of shoes, and overflowing and unattractive recycling bins are making a lot of you crazy. Proof that you know what we mean: Our weekly clutter tip gets some of the highest hits on our OregonLive.com website.

It's not a stretch to pull pets into our Best of the Year roundup. Yes, we love our dogs and cats and try to get photos of them and other pets into our issues as often as possible, but some stories speak directly to the link between pets and decor. Author Julia Szabo shares a bookful of tips in "Animal House Style: Designing a Home to Share With Your Pets." Our furry friends will continue to fill the pages of Homes & Gardens of the Northwest ... just because.

Unless you're hanging out in a room meant for them, big-screen TVs -- more likely these days to be giant-screen TVs -- make for ugly focal points. Solving the watch-it-then-hide-it problem can be expensive. Shannon Quimby resolved a tug-of-war with husband Glenn Hoffinger with the clever and inexpensive use of a map hanging from the ceiling.

View full sizeFrom Australian bush to backyard, Durie has eye for outdoorsTonya McCahon

HOME AND GARDEN TECHNOLOGY

Those with electronic devices know that apps and computer programs can ease every aspect of home decor, architecture and gardening. The Houzz interior decor app greets you with a choice of 900,000 photos, and Benjamin Moore Color Capture allows you take a photo and match the color to one of more than 3,000 paints. On the gardening side, you can download an expert (Jamie Durie and Martha Stewart, for example), identify insects with Bugs and Insects, or learn bird calls with Chirp! Bird Songs USA.

Tiny houses -- some smaller than 100 square feet -- loomed large in 2011, and still do. Hot on their footprint are miniature gardens where a Barbie doll could step in as Godzilla. Designed as formal English gardens or whoa-dude, let's-surf scenery, the landscapes go anywhere you want to take them with teeny accessories made especially or borrowed from dollhouses and board games. Mini is definitely in.

Maybe we cheat by putting the whole spectrum of sedums on top of the mountain of super-popular plants. But if the public can do it, so can we. These mix-and-match succulents proved their versatility and then some as they dressed up displays at garden shows, dangled from vertical walls, decorated wreaths and hanging globes, and even ended up framed as living paintings. A just-one-thing tip: If you're planning to keep your sedums outside, be sure to check their hardiness. Many are completely at home in our winter gardens, but some are not.

No matter what fueled it -- economic distress, health concerns, taste, variety -- vegetable gardening moved from trend to tradition in the blink of a few years. As people figured out compost and crop rotation, they started to cast around for new edibles to put in the ground and found fruit. Columnar apples, espaliered pears and blueberries take little space but yield big rewards. Next up? The not-so-common harvests of fruits such as fig, goji berries, persimmons and medlar. At garden shows and plant sales, fruit evangelist Jim Gilbert, owner of One Green World, spread the word to obviously enthusiastic shoppers standing three deep at his booth.

If you count trellises, arbors and fences, vertical gardening is nothing new. But the straight-up plantings of walls started their climb about five years ago, mostly at commercial locations; one example is the courtyard at Hotel Modera in downtown Portland, which has received national attention. Home gardeners are catching on. If we stretch the definition a bit, we can even add repurposed roof gutters, canvas shoe caddies and colorful rain boots to the vertical list.

Readers proved they're big on art -- as in murals that cover garage doors, sheds and fences. Our favorites included an English stone cottage that's really a backyard shed; 4-foot-tall orange and yellow poppies against an emerald green background; an antique Mercedes; and an RV with his-and-her scenes on each side. These were just some of the amazing murals created in the true spirit of DIY.

Without debating the definitions of modern, contemporary and midcentury modern, we'll just say that clean lines -- coming on for several years -- edged into trend territory in 2012. Evidence came at the trio of garden shows last winter, and in the geometry of artist David Lind's Southwest Portland garden, where the defining feature is the clearly contemporary front courtyard he designed in rectangles and cubes. But this is the Northwest, and we're not about to push endemic naturalism to the side. Nothing says they can't work together.

In 2011, readers had a lot to say about a story on
slugs. This year, bees were the "it" topic. For years, the buzzers have
been beleaguered by mites, pesticides and disease, and homeowners are helping
out to keep the important pollinating insects from declining any
further. One neighborhood organized a tour of several nearby gardens to
promote bee-friendly practices. About 30 Sabin residents stuck signs in
their gardens and put out a map to lead people on a self-guided jaunt
past front yards planted to tempt bees.